for something like that. it is important to call us and contact us like you are doing right now. >> after we called, they did remove that outgoing message all together. no rush. it is not like we are in election season or anything. >> president obama woke up to this headline this morning in denver. as did the rest of us. and then guess who decided to go out and do something with this headline today? that is right. president obama. and we have breaking news from mitt romney who just appeared on fox news and tried to rewrite this comments about 47% of america. >> a new mitt romney took the

stage last night. >> first of all i don't have a $5 trillion tax cut. i don't have a tax cut. >> really? is that so? >> across the board for all american. >> 20% across the board. >> by 20%. >> i don't have a$5 trillion tax cut i don't have a tax cut. >> if you want to be president you owe the american people the truth. >> i will repeal obamacare. >> the best course for health care is to do what we did in my state. >> he is saying he would not cut education. >> he says we need more firemen and more policemen. >> did he not get the message or wisconsin? >> who is the real mitt romney? >> every day he is in a different position.

>> i'm going to stop the subsidy for pbs. >> he is going to crack down on seseme street. >> i love big bird. >> elmo has to watch out. >> i think i get the last word. >> with 33 days until the presidential election moments ago on fox news mitt romney said he was completely wrong when he said that 47% of americans are hopeless losers. he was asked what he should have said. >> what would you have said if he did bring it up? >> well, clearly in a campaign

with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question and answer sessions now and again you are going to say something that does not come out right. i said something that is completely wrong. i believe that my life has shown that i care about 100%. and that has been demonstrated throughout my life. this campaign is about the 100%. when i'm president it will be about helping 100% >> here is what romney said after mother jones revealed romney's 47% remarks. >> it is a question and answer about the campaign and how i'm going to get the 51 or 52% that i need. of course there is a very different approach of the two different campaigns as i point out i recognize that among those that pay no tax 47% of americans i'm not going to be highly

successful of lowers taxes. and likewise those who are reliant on government are not as attracted to slimming down the size of government. it is not elegantly stated. i'm speaking off-the-cuff in response to a question and i'm sure i could state it more clearly than i did in a setting like that. i'm sure i'll point that out as time goes on. >> joining me now msnbc's alex wagner and chris hayes. the first round of this, he went the rush limbaugh route and explained the comments. he said this is such a golden opportunity. this could be the opportunity for the campaign to take the gloves off and explain conservatism.

tonight he says, well that comment i was completely wrong. >> yeah, you know, lawrence the word that has popped into my head in the course of the last 4 hours was labotomy. that is the ome way they are going to believe in the things that he is saying or he has had one. which is the explanation for this pivot. i think what struck me last night was there was btn't the attempt to defend this positions to his tax plans to this position on education funding to any number of thing that is he has run on, he white boarded everything. >> chris hayes, a presidential

candidate never wants to say that sentence, i was completely wrong. what else are you wrong about? but what choice does romney have at this point in how to respond to that 47% comment? >> i can what happened was he was a captive of the right wring of the party. anytime that he deviated they would smack him down. they said we have to house break the dog. beat the dog bad dog. it took until conservatives got so desperate that now he is freelancing. he is a free man. if there is something lawrence that you like, maybe he is for it. we just don't know. in the next 33 days, he is

unthennered and whatever is out there that might prove appeal. >> it is like a fruit basket. it could be a $50,000 deduction. just pick a number. >> well, we now know what the prepared response was for last night 47% question. it was going to be complete disowning of it. >> in the same way alex that he, and i have to say, he disowned the notion of doing a $5 trillion tax cut which has been a principle of his campaign until last night. >> it is amazing though that mitt romney who has been so burned by you tube is proposing that everyone is going to forget what he has proposed for the last 18 months. he has proposed the tax cut for the last 14 months.

the idea that in the last three and a half weeks he is going to be able to white wash what he said is ridiculous. >> when i got on the stage, i met a spirited fellow who claimed to be mitt romney. but i know it couldn't have been mitt romney because the real mitt romney has been running around the country for the last year promising tax cuts that favor the wealthy and yet the follow on the stage last night said he did not know anything about that. >> chris hayes, the president found his voice on that one today. >> what is interesting to me is that early on the campaign made a decision about whether they were going to attack mitt romney as someone you can't trust or as

a hard right ideal log, someone who is bound up with the republican party. and they chose the latter. going at him as an out of touch guy and he aided them as doubling down on everybody. reinforced that. now, he's shaking the etch a sketch and decided screw it, i'm going to go for whatever it is. and they have to pick a new way of attacking him. they picked it today. let's listen to more about what president obama said about him today >> who ever it was on stage last night doesn't want to be held accountable for the last year.

we don't want what he has been selling over the last year. he may dance around his positions and may do a tap dance and a two step, but if you want to be president, then you owe the american people the truth. [ applause ] >> alex wagner please, help me get the image of mitt romney dancing out of my mind. >> i will say this. there has been a flush of him since the debate. but i don't know how excited the conservative base is going to be in the long run as we unpack the positions that mitt romney has newly adopted as embracing parts of obamacare. maybe pell grants aren't such a bad idea. they know they are very, very rested. it will be interesting to see if the get it in the next couple of weeks.

>> the president is saying you can't trust him no matter what he says, you don't know what he is going to say tomorrow. >> yes, and that is a new line of attack. and in fact it is something that they laid the ground work on last night. i think the jury is out on this. the idea that he is not providing enough details. i'm curious about how effective an attack it is. one of the things is the idea that he is a crypto candidate. that he is keeping secret what he wants to do.

i think it is an accurate way to attack mitt romney. the question is how much of that registers with voters. let's listen to how rush limbaugh explains it last night. >> he actually could not get through one semester of college himself. so he is imagining through his bottomless pit of hate that he >> he actually could not get through one semester of college himself. so he is imagining through his bottomless pit of hate that he

couldn't achieve academically everywhere. >> sort of indictment of affirmative action. and rush's comments the notion that the president has not fought for and won the achievements that are fairly impressive throughout his life is yet another attempt to pave him as outside the main stream of america. it is disdespicable and the undercurrent there is the notion of laziness. it is a weighted term as we talk about people who are not like ourselves. you know, the republicans are using this, they are using this to dance around the maypoll and

throw confetti into the air. i'm convinced that this doesn't move voters in one way or the other. this is believing what they tell themselves and what they tell themselves is that it is an affirmative action case. they believe on the right that this is someone who has skidded by. he has been given everything. if they keep thinking that, they will have a wake-up call in a second. >> today, barack obama's up one point and mitt romney is up two points and there is a change as a result of 67 million people watching. chris hayes and alex wagner thank you both.

>> and in the spotlight tonight a preview of the next debate. biden versus ryan. and in the rewrite tonight i'll tell you why everyone is wrong. and why mitt romney won nothing last night. welcome aboard! [ chuckles ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ]

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it is coming up next.

let me warn you and let me warn the nation against the smooth evation that says of course we believe these things. but we do not like the way the first administration is do that go.

just turn them over to us. we will do all of them. we will do more of them. we will do them better and most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything. [ applause ] >> not even franklin roosevelt could have anticipated the evation that mitt romney would say about his tax plan. >> governor romney's central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut on top of the bush tax cut. >> i don't have a tax cut of the scale that you are talking about. >> for 18 months he has been

running on this tax plan. and now five weeks before the election he is saying that his big, bold idea is never mind. >> joining me now is esra. he says he doesn't have a $5 trillion tax cut. >> mitt romney has existed in a state of what we say quantum uncertainty. the way you break this down. i don't think he has been inconsistent on this. he has a tax cut. if you implemented it, what he says though, and has said from the beginning is that he will pay for that tax cut. when you include that sentence, he then says fairly scored, i have promised as a later date to pay for it. the question has been how are

you going to pay for it? why should we believe you when no republican in 20 or 30 years has paid for a tax cut. i'm not sure it is wrong for romney to say that he is going to do a $5 trillion tax cut. the problem is he hasn't told us a word about how he is going to pay for it. the three things he wants to do, have the 20% across the board rate cut and have it paid for while protecting a bunch of tax cuts, they can't be done at once. something has to give and we don't know what it will be. >> he is wrong. because, if we give them the allowance that you are willing to give him, that will be the first time in the history of the

discussion of tax policy in our government that anyone has been able to say i don't have a $5 trillion tax cut because i'm going to pay for it with other things. it is measured by how much revenue you will cut by he tax collection. the fact that you will offset it another way is a whole separate section and a separate issue. if we give him this allowance he will be the first politician who is given that break. >> to be fair on this, i don't think many more people are more critical of this plan than i do. because it doesn't add up. if it came up to $5 trillion i would be happy to say on this program or any other, it is not going to cost the treasury $5 if it came up to $5 trillion i would be happy to say on this program or any other, it is not

going to cost the treasury $5 trillion. the issue for romney and for the country is that he hasn't done that and saying trust me, and the question is why trust him and when the analyst say the numbers don't add up how can you trust him. that is what he is hiding in here. he says the president can't pay him$5 trillion. why should we believe you? if you are not willing to say in a campaign when your job is to tell the american people what you are going to do, why should

we believe that you are not going to do what george w. bush did and what ronald reagan did. >> there is one element of truth. did the deduction side. the truth is the entire thing is up to congress. the president proposes the notion of the way that he should go. the side thea that he can stand up there and not tell anyone in america what he will veto if congress tries to do their mortgage deduction is a complete altercation of it. >> in which what you are supposed to do as a president is tell the american people and i guess congress the popular part of what you would do but it would be overstepping to sell to them the tough parts required to make it work. and if the president isn't going to be able to go out and get

support for the hard parts. the tax cut part, that is the easy bit. >> thank you for joining me tonight. >> coming up, paul ryan keeps saying it takes too long to explain the math of his budget plan. but i think joe biden will let him have all the time that he needs let's week and later it is mitt romney versus big bird and in the rewrite what really happened in that debate last night. the answer less than you think. ♪ [ man ] when i'm in my zone... every move i make is a statement...

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jim leher has suffered a lot of criticism for the way he moderated the debate. i prefer when moderators get out of the way and don't liter the debates. be careful what you wish for when you wish for assertive, clever presidential debate moderators. >> the first question goes to governor dukakis you have two minute to respond. governor, if kitty dukakis were raped and murdered would you >> the first question goes to governor dukakis you have two minute to respond. governor, if kitty dukakis were raped and murdered would you favor the death penalty for the

killer. >> no, i don't bernard and i think you know i owe possess the death penalty in my life. and i think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime. and we have done so in my state. >> and who was the last first lady who was raped and murdered? when did that become something presidents have to become prepared to deal with. give me jim leher over that nonsense any day. coming up. if you were one of the people who declared a winner after watching last night's debate i'm going to ask you to reconsider after tonight's rewrite.

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john mccain has been dead wrong on the fundamental issues relating to the conduct of the war. barack obama has been right. they are the facts. >> in the spotlight tonight the next debate. at this exact moment one week from now vice president joe biden and paul ryan will be hugging their families on a stage where they will have completed their debate.

>> what i have been doing mostly is studying up on congressman ryans positions on the issues. and governor romney has embraced everything i can see. i don't want to say anything in the debate that is not completely accurate. >> meanwhile, paul ryan is pretending that he is not memorizing lines. >> you know me well, i don't try to be anybody other than who i am. i believe what i believe and i do what i do and believe in the policies that we are providing, pursuing, at the end of the day i'm going to go in there and be me. >> crystal, let's look at paul ryan going with his gutt with chris wallace.

>> you haven't given me the math. >> it would take me too long to go through all of the math. >> it is too long. it is complicated. i don't want to talk about. i mean, joe biden is not going to have any fear of being aggressive. if paul ryan doesn't get pushed, biden will be ready to go after him. in the last vice presidential debate i knew his stuff. even though as you showed in that clip he and mccain were good friends, he was aggressive in going after mccain and his friends. >> this was tuesday.

>> why aren't you more specific i heard you sunday when you were on fox and you didn't answer his question about how we're going to you know what are your plans? >> oh, yeah, look, when you get in 0 a math conversation it can take a little while. >> steve, we've got time. >> you know, yeah, joe biden is going to step back and go take your time. go ahead, you know, we can listen. >> yeah, there is this famous s and l sketch from the 1988 election. and he said you got 1:30 and talk about what you do for the homeless problem. he says i don't have enough time there is so much to get to. you know what, we have stopped the clock for you.

and he stairs. you wonder, the thing was, in the debate last night. obama had multiple opportunities to press romney and be specific on the math and present the math to people to make them understand. he missed the opening and i think crystal is right. when you look at how joe biden has conducted himself in the past. one of the big reasons he is on the ticket in the first place is how well he performed in the last debates. he made a strong impress on democrats and the obama campaign. if you go way back in history for joe biden that campaign ended. but in the early going in the spring and summer that year, he had a reputation for being a powerful performer for performing well that summer. but you know take that away. there was a lot of unfairness.

he was a strong communicator and strong debater. >> look, folks, i know we all don't have access to governor romney's accountant. i thought last night when he said i would like to introduce my accountant to that. i would love to have his accountant. but look, we understand, someone ends up paying for all of this. >> crystal, joe biden has the touch with that sort of thing. he does and that is funny. and that helps. that is always helpful and the other thing that i would note from this performance in 2008

and also from this speech is how loyal he is. nothing is about him. it is about the president and the president's plans and an attack on governor romney. and at that time in 2008. i noticed that palin focused on her record and her family. it was me centered and i can see paul ryan walking down that same path and the work that he has done in congress rather than making it about governor romney and president obama. >> do you think the age difference will be a factor? >> yeah. almost exexactly the same age different from 1988. that was a situation where quail looked like the young day. and it was like an old testament figure.

when he looked at quail and said you are no jack kennedy. >> biden is still hot. he has it. >> he doesn't quite have the same gravity of a guy like lloyd benson. >> thank you for joining me tonight. >> coming up. mitt romney wants to try to balance the budget by getting rid of big bid. which will save 1, 100th of 1% of the federal budget. and next it is easy to have a gutt reaction about who won the debate. but being right about that, that is not so easy. that is next.

the media covers presidential debates as if they are sporting events and that is a big, big mistake. it makes pundits believe it is easy to tell who wins debates. what mitt romney did not win last night is next in the rewrite. wooohooo....hahaahahaha! oh...there you go.

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with information about who won the debate. i used to be one of those guys. i knew for sure that john kerry won all three of his debates against george bush. but of course he didn't. this is a good time to think about what it means to win a debate. in high school and college debates there are judges to decide which debaters who actually won. those debates have real winners. winners who get real trophies. no one got a trophy but plenty of people guessed at who would have gotten a trophy.

the question is they were debating for votes and those votes wouldn't be counted until next month. so all of the winner talk you have been hearing is just guessing and all of the guessers have been wrong before. my guess is about who won debates have been wrong many times which is why it was so easy for me to resist guessing who one last night. you know court reporters are smarter about this. court reporters have seen high priced defense lawyers deliver brilliant closing arguments. court reporters don't even say who won. they wait, they wait hours sometimes days for the jury to vote and then tell them who won. court reporters see lawyers with

the best argument and the most engaging style lose cases every day and they see the opposite happen every day. frequently juries will tell court reporters they didn't care about the testimony that the news media thought was the most important thing. they based their decision on something else that was said or not said. hanging around courtrooms guessing what juries are going to do is a humbing experience. i think you should watch these debates the way you should watch a trial. when the lawyers make their opening statements in court you shouldn't think one of them just won.

we are going to hear from a couple of witnesses next week. and then we'll hear the final arguments on october 22nd. and then you should wait 15 days just 15 days and find out who won, won the debates right here, at this hour on november 6th when we report to you, who won 270 electoral votes. but that is not what political pundit rz going to do. they are going to continue to watch presidential debates the way they watch the world series. they will tell you who wins games two and three but none of them will know who won. they are so used to thinking that they know who wins these

debates that they don't realize anymore that they areguessing. what millions of voters they will never meet. what those people think of the debaters that is what they are guessing. you will have your favorite guessers. i have mine. we will be tempted to believe them. but we should try to resist that temptation. not that i've ever been good at resisting temptation but we should at least try. here is what a poll tells us happened last night. it showed us that basically nothing happened that today in the poll taken today that president obama has gone up one point. that is movement within the margin of error and means nothing.

the denver post head line today uses a boxing analogy round one. the reporter who wrote the front-page story switches to another sport bull fighting, in the first paragraph of his article it is perfect. republican nominee charged at president obama, at the university of denver on wednesday, in a clash that was notable for romney's aggressiveness in a direct night. here is the great part like a bull to a matador. romney time and again turned toward obama to the tax portraying him hopeless in trying to turn the economy around. like a bull to a matador turned

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>> at a time when the public is run by the right any concerned this administration is going to protect the muppets and by god we are going to protect julia child. >> last night mitt romney says

he wants that fight. >> i'm sorry jim, i'm going to stop the subsidy to pbs. i like pbs and big bird and i like you too. but i'm not going to keep spending moneythings i have to borow money from china to pay for. >> so don't boo now. but i want to make sure i got this straight. he will get rid of regulations on wall street but he is going to crack down on seseme street. thank goodness somebody is finally cracking down on big bird. who knew that he was responsible for the deficits elmo has to watch out.

>> joining me now nbc's joy read. he is going to cut 1, 100th of 1% of the federal budget by cutting any subsidies that go to pbs, i don't know, i don't think he is going to get to that balanced budget with that. >> i don't think so. but he will stop those socialists muppets. the problem with the idea of cutting such a small piece of the budget with pbs is medicare and medicaid. he said that he would increase military spending so what mitt romney would be left with would be slashing a third of something else. that would be school lunches and veterans benefits. he would have to slash

everything else in the budget. >> the politics of it is looney. going after something that is so popular for something that is such a tiny dollar cost it is not in the rounding era margins in the budget it is dangerous. peggy noonan is saying watch out for big bird. mr. romney gave a small difficult to the incumbents i think she is right. joy, this is a bad place for romney to go. >> this was the one bone to romney threw to the far right. they have this obsession with pbs in doctrine ating children into socialism. that is sad. >> yeah, and joy, i want to let